The Foundery, London

For over 45 years, John Wesley’s headquarters in London was the Foundery, a former royal arsenal which had stood empty since an explosion in 1716.

In 1739, Wesley acquired the lease for £115, spent £700 repairing and equipping it and held the first service on 11 November. It became the home of the first Methodist society in London.

It was a multi-purpose building, with two entrances, one into the preaching house and the other into the living quarters, band-room, schoolroom and book room where Methodist publications were stored and sold. There was also stabling for horses.

The preaching house held 1,500, men and women separated Moravian-style. The living quarters included rooms for Wesley, his mother during her closing years, some of his preachers and a number of poor widows. He insisted on a common table for the whole family.

Luke Tyerman, Life of John Wesley Vol 1, pp. 271-2:

The band-room was behind the chapel, on the ground floor, some eighty feet long and twenty feet wide, and accommodated about three hundred persons. Here the classes met; here, in winter, the five o’clock morning service was conducted; and here were held, at two o’clock on Wednesdays and Fridays, weekly meetings for prayer and intercession. The north end of the room was used for a school, and was fitted up with desks; and at the south end was the book-room for the sale of Wesley’s publications.

Over the band-room were apartments for Wesley, in which his mother died; and at the end of the chapel was a dwelling-house for his domestics and assistant preachers, while attached to the whole was a small building used as a coach-house and stable.